TORONTO (November 5, 2010) – San Jose Sharks forward Joe Thornton has been suspended for two games and will forfeit $77,419.36 in salary as a result of delivering an illegal check to the head of St. Louis Blues forward David Perron in NHL game #176, last night, the National Hockey League announced today.

The incident occurred at 5:26 of the second period and Thornton was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct under Rule 48 for Illegal Check to the Head.

Thornton will miss games against Tampa Bay (Nov. 6) and Anaheim (Nov. 9). He is eligible to return Nov. 11 against the New York Islanders.

Thornton’s fine is based on his average annual salary and is calculated under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

It’s plain as day, he checked him in the head. It’s illegal and he should have been suspended. My only complaint is that it wasn’t more than 2 games.

This isn’t 1960 anymore where the average player is 5’9” and 160lbs.
These are giant monsters, with Kevlar armor skating like a prime Pavel Bure out there.

Everyone talks about the pussification of the NHL, but that’s laughable. Watch a game from today compared to the Broadstreet bullies. I watched one the other day on classic ESPN. There was barely any body checking out there. It was like a pick-up game.

The league is finally trying to protect these guys from themselves. It’s overdue.

it was blindside… that’s the key. head-on it’s the offensive player’s responsibility to look where he’s going. if it’s from the blindside, it’s the hitter’s responsibility. it doesn’t really matter if he “targeted” the head or not, fact is, he hit him in the head from the blindside and that is precisely what they are trying to get out of the game by handing out suspensions. there will be a one or two season transition where a bunch of “questionable” hits will receive what seems like overly harsh punishments and then players will begin to instinctually get it and stop making these hits and we won’t debate them anymore.

While I have no issue with Thorton getting suspended since the league has judged it a “head shot”.
But why wasn’t Carcillo suspended as well when he obviously targeted the head on his hit?
Typical enforcement by the NHL, no consistency on how they apply punishment.

I agree JJ, but that’s the issue I have with the rule.
Is the league really trying to protect players by allowing hits to the head as long as it doesn’t come from the blindside? Especially when they don’t really define what the blindside actually is.
To protect the players, all hits that have the head as the primary point of contact should be illegal.
The current rule comes off as the typical NHL rule change that is only done to try and silence the critics without really doing anything to protect the players.

I personally wouldn’t mind if the NHL went to an Olympic-style rule where all headshots are mandatory penalties. I think neither the quality nor the physicality of the game would be hurt by it. If you want to see a great hit, check out Jack Johnson’s hit on Mattias Ritola from last night’s Kings/Lightning game. Hip-to-hip contact that sends a guy flying.

On the other hand, I’m not hearing anything from the NHLPA about wanting to further limit headshots. I think that when they’re ready to eliminate all hits to the head, they will. Until then, I guess we get to keep debating about what exactly “blind-side” means.

while many issues I definitely come down on the side of player safety, banning all hits to the head seems like overkill. there has to be an onus of responsibility on the receiving player. the game is just too fast. if Kronwall decides to step up at the blue line and the charging forward happens to not look up that time, he gets his bell rung… it sucks, but you’d hope people would learn their lesson. while of course “blind side” is always debatable, the spirit of this rule is about punishing the player who could have theoretically prevented the injury… often that’s the player receiving the check because the oncoming player is coming too fast to stop at the last second when he realizes the guy isn’t going to look where he’s going. it’s a tough issue no doubt and I understand both sides, but I actually think it would affect the physicality of the game. players would have to play hesitant.

Carcillo’s hit didn’t come from the blind side, it came from the Ruslan Fedotenko wasn’t watching where he was going side.

And Perron was watching?

Carcillo was looking to be a dick and Thornton just had the right opportunity at the right time. No one thinks of players coming out of the penalty box, especially if you had just looked up before starting a rush out of your zone and saw no one there.